Mutants are all around us. They could be your neighbors. They could be your co-workers They could bw related to you. Gifted with extraordinary powers, they are the next step on the evolutionary ladder. Some use their powers for good; some, for unspeakable evil. One group had dedicated its wondrous abilities to protect mankind, even those who hate and fear them. Known to the world at large as outlaws, they are the X-Men

Only hours ago, it had seemed like just another ordinary day in the life of a kid whose world was falling apart. her parents were splitting up, and Kitty Pryde herself was being plagued by a series of steadily worsening, skull crushing headaches.

She came home from dance class in time to be introduced to Emma Frost -- It was dislike at first sight.

Her reaction to the X-Men -- when Professor Xavier arrived to try to recruit her for his school for gifted youngsters -- was quite the opposite, Wolverine was spooky, Colossus a real hunk...

It was too close. It had only been a few years since the assassinations. In a way, it seemed like that would be too raw. My resonance to Magneto and Xavier was borne more out of the Holocaust. It was coming face to face with evil, and how do you respond to it? In Magneto's case it was violence begets violence. In Xavier's it was the constant attempt to find a better way."

If you wanted one book to summarize all that the X-Men is abot in terms of character and conflict and theme, I’d have to say that –God Loves, Man Kills- was it. If you could only read one X-Men graphic novel start with that. Because for me the X-Men is not about super heroe’s and super villains it is about people, and how you deal with the challenge of life and the choices you have to make every day...That for me is why Magneto is so imporant. Xavier is spoke for. He already....he has made his choices. He is a hero. Magneto is a work in progress. He is not evil. He is defined by his past. But that definition drives him to disaster. The question for him is..is he the ictim of his destiny or can he change it. Can he grow? I'm not sure, I'd like to think he can.

Chris Claremont Ages of the X-Men” Essays on the Children of the Atom in Changing Times p.100

The actual story line was that Xavier would die in issue #200...and that Magneto would become head of the school [pause] permanently.....But the idea, that goal was built from the death of Phoenix. The hope was to show that this is ... their lives as X-Men have a real risk. This isn't superhero games. This is reality. In reality good guys sometimes do not win and people die. And that has to be part of their lives otherwise it just becomes a video game ... life isn't like that. . And I always thought , my thought was the stories we tell in comics shouldn't be like that either. If there is risk for the reader, then the victory is that much sweeter. And you can, something can happen that can catch you by surprise and can have that much power and heart.

Chris Claremont Ages of the X-Men” Essays on the Children of the Atom in Changing Times Freakytown p.101

No matter what genres or gimmicks were tried sales kept contracting and contracting [...] Comics needed a miracle and it didn't look like anyone in charge was capable of producing one. Marvel President Arthur Landaus idea of a money making idea was this: create a team of international superheroes representing all the major foreign markets in which he would sell Marvel products.

Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs as quoted in Ages of the X-Men Essays on the Children of the Atom in Changing Times p.39

With Magneto, whose people were hounded and hunted and almost tortured, he had every right to feel, 'We're trying to help mankind, and they're making us outlaws, and they're persecuting us, we've got to strike back.

They were meant to emphasize the conflict between people who felt that we've got to all work together and find a way to get along, and people who feel, 'We're not treated well, therefore we're going to strike back with force!

...the idea of a revived "international" X-Men was my idea in 1974, after the company's president, Al Landau, suggested that it would be good to cteate group of heroes from different countries we sold comic[s] to. I put writer Mike Fredrich and artist Dave Cockrum on it, with instructions to use a few old X-Men and create a few new ones, and left them to it. I quit the editor-in-chief job not long afterward, so had no further connection with it [...]

Thomas Roy "Re: Follow Up Question." Message to Joseph Darowski.31 October 2013, E-Mail. Ages of the X-Men Essays on the Children of the Atom in Changing Times p.44

You look at the X-Men movies and it's an allegory for what it's like to be gay, like, if you take the word mutant out of that movie and stick gay in, the movie still works.

Kevin Smith, A Complete History of American Comic Books by Shirrel Rhoades p.66

It is as important a serious piece of work as Strindberg or Ibsen. You don’t shortchange the work because it is a comic book franchise for a studio. I think entertaining is a serious business and shouldn’t be taken half-heartedly.

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